Booka in Oswestry, Shropshire, has confounded sceptics and the wider trend of failing high street bookstores by increasing turnover each year and by becoming a mecca for book lovers.
Photograph: Jon Super for the Guardian

After a decade of closures, independent booksellers are optimistic they can turn the page on a story of decline as they launch a festival of 24-hour “readathons”, live story-writing and numerous book signings this weekend.

Appearances across the country by authors including Antony Beevor, Jonathan Sacks and Helen Macdonald will mark the ninth Independent Bookshop week, but the shutters are still being pulled down as Amazon, ebooks and supermarkets take their toll.

Last year almost twice as many bookshops closed down as new ones opened. There are 939 independents left in the UK and Ireland, compared with more than 1,500 a decade ago, according to the latest count by the Booksellers Association.

Among the survivors, though, there are signs of a renaissance. Booka in Oswestry, Shropshire, which was recently crowned independent bookshop of the year by trade magazine the Bookseller, is one of the retailers leading the fightback.

Carrie and Tim Morris opened Booka in 2010, during the depths of the economic downturn when high street shops were closing and banks had stopped lending. Cheap books were everywhere: on the internet and on supermarket shelves. E-readers were just taking off, sparking endless conversations about the death of the paperback.

“I think some people thought we were mad,” says Tim Morris, who gave up his job as a town planner to become a bookseller. “People used to say ‘you are very brave,’” adds Carrie, a former primary school teacher.

Five and half years later, Booka has confounded sceptics and the wider trend of failing high street bookstores. Not only has the Oswestry shop increased its turnover each year, it has become a mecca for book lovers in the Midlands and Welsh borders, drawing in visitors from as far away as Manchester to hear writers such as Michael Morpurgo, Jon Ronson and Martin Bell.

On a midsummer evening the shop is crowded with people, who have come to listen to three authors talk about their latest work over a glass of prosecco. The conversation zigzags over the books’ themes: the London riots, religious cults, family and the search for belonging, and the audience ask the authors about their writing routines. “It is a way to connect with you readers, you won’t do that on Amazon,” says David Whitehouse, who is promoting his second novel, The Mobile Library.

Amid fizzy wine and applause, the renaissance of independent bookselling is certainly a seductive thesis, but ongoing closures remain a worry.

Book lovers attend an evening with Picador authors Rebecca Wait, David Whitehouse and Sarah Butler at Booka. Photograph: Jon Super for the Guardian

Speaking to the Guardian about Independent Bookshop Week, children’s author Philip Pullman said he was concerned about the industry’s predicament. “They simply cannot compete on price with Amazon, and yet their presence in a town is a sign of civilisation that we really ought to look after.”

For publishers, the loss of thousands of shop windows damages the book industry as a whole. Francesca Main, editorial director of Picador, the literary arm of the Macmillan publishing group, says the closure of independent bookshops is a threat to the range and diversity of books published. “It does worry me because shops are the best way to discover authors,” she adds.

There was a sense that bookshops were doomed … but we have turned that conversation round

Meryl Halls, Booksellers Association

Independent booksellers were among the first to champion The Miniaturist, a story of secrets, intrigue and sugar in 17th-century Amsterdam by Jesse Burton – propelling the debut novelist up bestseller lists.

“In the early days, it was handselling from dedicated booksellers that helped the book get noticed,” says Main. “Amazon is just a giant sea of books, unless you are on the right algorithm you won’t be found.”

Despite the heft of Amazon, Meryl Halls at the Booksellers Association is hopeful that more high streets will be graced with independent booksellers in 10 years’ time. “There was a sense that bookshops were doomed … but we have turned that conversation round,” she says. “Consumers really value a diverse high street and value book stores as part of that.”

Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller, also sees reasons for optimism. “Momentum is back on the high street and being led by very well established and very good booksellers who have had to learn the new skills to compete in the market place.”

Established and very good booksellers … have had to learn the new skills to compete in the market place

Philip Jones, The Bookseller

The only concern he sees is that selling coffee may be more lucrative than shifting copies of the latest Ian McEwan. “The business of actually selling books through bookstores is perhaps not as lively as the business of being a bookshop,” Jones says.

It is not just good coffee and entrepreneurial flair working their magic: independent sellers are also boosted by the resilience of paper books, slowing takeup of e-readers and the lift from an economic recovery.

The appeal of an indie vibe also helps. Waterstones – undergoing its own revival under the leadership of veteran bookseller James Daunt – has opened a self-styled “quintessentially local bookshop” in the seaside town of Southwold in Suffolk. Tellingly, this Waterstones outlet will not bear the company name. When Penguin Random House, the world’s largest publisher, launched a social network-cum-book-buying website, it chose the title My Independent Bookshop. A small proportion of the takings go to independent shops.

Veteran bookseller James Daunt, the chief executive of Waterstones. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

“[Big companies] know that there is a real momentum there and they are trying to tap into that success,” says Gillian Robertson, founder of Looking Glass Books in Edinburgh, an independent bookseller that has a writer-in-residence, events, book clubs and a cafe.

All kinds of independent book stores are doing well nonetheless, she says. “They are all embedded in the community in some way.”

But what about those customers who browse boutique shelves, linger over a flat white – and then go home to order a batch of titles on Amazon. The author of the bestselling novel One Day, David Nicholls, recently described such behaviour as a “genteel form of shoplifting”. Robertson is sanguine. This kind of shopping is a fact of life, she says, although she is convinced most of her customers are buyers, as well as browsers.

“I think people are beginning to realise we are providing some kind of service … and join the dots,” she says.

High street story

Household names such as Woolworths and Borders may have vanished from the British high street, but independent retailers have actually increased their presence.

• The number of independent shops has risen each year since 2010, although recent growth has slowed.

• Whereas the old high street was held together by the butcher, the baker and the newsagent, today’s mainstays are the barber, the beauty salon and the e-cigarette retailer.

• In 2014 a net total of 346 independent shops opened, reflecting huge churn among small businesses. According to a recent survey by the Local Data Company and the British Independent Retailers Association, 15,762 shops opened for business, while 15,416 shut their doors for good.

• The biggest growth has been among service providers that do not face competition from the internet, such as tattooists and hairdressers. Restaurants, bars, cafes and betting shops have also increased their presence, although not as rapidly as previous years. Clothes stores, internet cafes, newsagents and pubs are in retreat.

• The number of independent bookshops has been in remorseless decline for a decade, having fallen almost 40% since 2005. The rate of closures has slowed but not stopped: the number of indie bookshops shrank by 5% in 2013-14, compared with 7% in 2008-09.

This article was amended on 22 June 2015. It originally said HMV had disappeared from British high streets, along with Woolworths and Borders. HMV went bankrupt in 2013, but continues to operate around 120 stores in the UK. This has been corrected.